Posts Tagged ‘celestial steed’

Everyone and their dog has an opinion on “premium” services in WoW. There are some people that feel that because WoW charges a monthly fee, it is unethical to charge for some premium services. Currently, there are quite a few services that Blizzard offers to enhance your MMO experience:

Many MMOs have gone free-to-play, where the only revenue from the game is from optional, purchasable services like the ones Blizzard offers for WoW. However, WoW requires you to pay a non-trivial amount to play per month, as well as the price tag of the game. Here are the current numbers for the software and game time on the Blizzard store and Amazon as of the publishing of this post:

Put away those Sparkle Ponies and get ready for the next mount you’ll be tired of seeing two days later! Blizzard posted a picture of their next $2 million+ payday to the official WarCraft Facebook page just a short time ago. The flying feline you see below comes complete with voluminous glowing wings, light-bathed footpads, and a mane made of cresting flames behind the head.

Judging by the background, I imagine this premium mount should hit the Blizzard Store around the time that 4.1 is released (5-man Troll-themed content), though no clues as to what it may cost or whether or not it has any cool, custom animations (I’m going to guess no, based on previous experience).

And assuming that the subject is still in our hearts and minds when it arrives, I eagerly await the controversial threads asking why Blizzard isn’t donating some (or all) of the proceeds to the natural disaster victims in Japan. As well as the counter-arguments that “you don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want to!” Both of which are already showing up in the comments on Facebook.

Some people might question the necessity of this maneuver, but I find that the big trend these days seems to be choice. Where you get your information, and how you get it, is completely up to you. It’s the reason why Google integrates into everything and everything integrates into Skynet Facebook (yes, even Twitter). Maybe you already have a good method for figuring out when the servers are up or down (refreshing the in-game browser ad nauseum for three hours straight doesn’t count). Maybe you’ve got a bookmark on the status page, or have it hooked up to an RSS feed.

But if you don’t? Well, now you can keep up with the times on Twitter, by following the official BlizzardCS account. Now, don’t go thinking you can spam it every time your game crashes. This is less for accepting complaints and more for disseminating mass information and updates quickly:

You can now follow all Blizzard Entertainment Customer Support news and updates on Twitter. Just head over to @BlizzardCS, (http://twitter.com/BlizzardCS) for the latest Support related news, events and more. We will be providing constant updates during Tuesday’s maintenance and service outages. Additionally, you will be able to view updates to our Queue Times for Game Master interactions, account investigations and escalated tickets alike.

Of course, we’d be remiss if any mention of Twitter went without a convenient link to our own account. Yes, our ancient Sparklepony contest is still going on because we’ve yet to hit the magic number. Scratch our back and we’ll scratch yours! All you have to do is follow @Lorehound today!

It was only a matter of time. Members of the WoW audience were not the only ones who took notice last month when Blizzard made the move to sell its first mount for IRL dollars. Of course not. At 25 bucks a pop, those sparkle ponies sold like hotcakes (and I, too, am guilty of this indulgence.) And in result, Blizzard surely made millions off of one single in-game item that looks pretty. How could the world not take notice of such a large amount of real-life cash being spent on a virtual item?

Some of us worried that this would set a precedent for things to come. And it looks like that is starting to unfold. Today, Sony Online Entertainment announced that it would sell its first ever marketplace mounts, called the Prowlers — available in “Ethereal” purple, “Sinister” green and “Ulteran” blue. And unlike the Celestial Steed that looks pretty but pretty much offers no advantage otherwise, these guys come with built-in buffs:

“Each mount comes in your choice of one of the following versions: Fierce and Arcane. The Fierce version increases Slashing, Aggression, Ranged, Piercing and Crushing of caster by 5, while the Arcane version increases Focus, Ordination, Disruption, Subjugation and Ministration of caster by 5. Both versions of the mount have a 65% run speed.

The Prowlers are guaranteed to be available for at least one month and adventurers can now purchase these new mounts for 2500SC (Pixie’s note – this equates to $25 each, the same as the Celestial Steed) from the Marketplace. These are the first Station Cash items of their kind and are immediately available in-game, upon purchase.

So even though we all pretty much saw this coming, it still bothers me. One of the huge caveats that supporters of the Celestial Steed — including myself — have been saying all along is that they support it because it does not provide any in-game advantage over other mounts. Not the case with The Prowlers. Does this raise the bar for what we’ll see in the future? Slippery slope, folks. That’s all I’m sayin’.

I love my shiny pony. But what will be the price that we ultimately pay for this service? Would those of you who supported the Celestial Steed like myself still agree with the idea if we start seeing more items that provide an in-game advantage?

The title of this post says it all: Follow @LoreHound on Twitter, and you will automatically be entered to win a loot code for a shiny new Celestial Steed.

We’ve already announced this nifty new contest in a few different places on the site, but this post now makes it official. We’re aiming to hit 2,000 followers. Once we do, we will randomly choose one of our followers to receive the lucky prize.

So, please. Save a pony from being put down. And help me get all this sparkly, stardust out of my hair. Follow us on Twitter. And spread the word to your friends. She-Ra will thank you.

**Update** Yes, the contest is still on! Keep sending Twitter followers our way so we can get up to our goal and give away a beautiful Celestial Steed. In the meantime, also enjoy this video of pixie pimping the contest:

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Check out this week’s episode of our WoWcast! This week we’re chatting about the rest of the Cataclysm Class Previews, more Heroic Lich King kills, and of course the new Celestial Steed available from the Blizzard Store.

Also, we want to get you listeners involved! E-mail us at podcast@lorehound.com or leave us a voicemail using the button below or simply call us at (304) 884-LORE. We look forward to hearing from you guys.